A Speccy Man Has A Breakdown - day 57, for printing

Hear me read this.

<< Day 54

OK, hands up, I’m under arrest. I haven’t managed to get the files ready to print the book today. Sorry about that.

The number of buyers has shot up, thank you!, and I’m thrilled. Every sale helps. But it also makes everything more intimidating because the cost of printing all these hardbacks is high, and I worry I’ve done something wrong.

Also this week: spent a lot of mental energy working out what to do about ISBNs, and ultimately concluded that I don’t want an ISBN.

An ISBN is plumbing for the book trade, and does five things. It lets physical bookshops order a book. It lets libraries catalogue a book. It puts a book on Amazon and Waterstones websites. It gives distributors a number so they can move stock around. And it signals “this is a real publication” to a certain kind of reader.

But this book isn’t going to bookshops.
It isn’t going to libraries.
It isn’t going on Amazon.
There are no distributors.

The plumbing has nothing to plumb.

As for the fifth thing (“this is real”): well it’s a numbered, signed, limited first edition of 250 copies. Each one comes with an art print. If that doesn’t seem real, a barcode isn’t going to help.

***

I’ve been held up terribly by worrying about the best sequence of actions to take.

I’ve fixed typos, and switched a couple of pages around. I’ve stopped adding new names to the list of buyers so I can lock down the thank you page inside the book – then opened it up again when someone else bought a copy. Must stop doing that.

I also need to design the book’s covers: front, back and spine, each to be uploaded to the printer as a separate file. The cover doesn’t need to “sell” the book because it won’t appear in a bookshop, and weirdly I’m finding that freedom itself intimidating.

And design the wrap-around dust jacket, which doesn’t need to “sell” the book etc etc, ditto.

Probably the single most paralysing decision is what to put in the two or three blank pages at the back. A list of my previous books? A short essay on varifocals? Something else?

Leave them blank? Aargh.

***

Thank you for your thoughtful replies and good wishes for how to reply to the journalists who kindly approached Harriet, to talk about what we went through when I was so depressed.

So far our media strategy has been to do nothing and hope it all goes away (ha!).

I received another request this afternoon. Am furiously pursuing the same strategy.

***

Just 173 copies of the limited edition hardback remain available.
Know someone who’d like one? Please pass this on.

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👉 If you or someone you know is struggling, please call a crisis line (in the UK, Samaritans on 116 123), and / or take a look at Reasons To Stay.

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Someone forwarded this?
Start from the beginning here.